Policing Citizens Minority Policy in Israel

What does police violence against minorities, or violent clashes between minorities and the police tell us about citizenship and its internal hierarchies? Indicative of deep-seated tensions and negative perceptions; incidents such as these suggest how minorities are vulnerable, suffer from or are subject to police abuse and neglect in Israel. Marked by skin colour, negatively stigmatized or rendered security threats, their encounters with police provide a daily reminder of their defunct citizenship. Taking as case studies the experiences and perceptions of four minority groups within Israel including Palestinian/Arab citizens, ultra-Orthodox Jews and Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, Ben-Porat and Yuval are able to explore different paths of citizenship and the stratification of the citizenship regime through relations with and perceptions of the police in Israel. Touching on issues such as racial profiling, police brutality and neighbourhood neglect, their study questions the notions of citizenship and belonging, shedding light on minority relationships with the state and its institutions.

Introduction. Policing citizens; 1. Theoretical Framework; 2. Police and policing in Israel; 3. Arab citizens: national minority and police; 4. The skin color effect: police and the Jews of Ethiopian descent; 5. The religious factor: ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim); 6. Integration and citizenship: Russian immigrants; Conclusions.

Guy Ben-Porat is Professor and Department Chairperson at the Department of Politics and Government at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He is the author of Global Liberalism, Local Populism (2006), which won the Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, and Between State and Synagogue (Cambridge, 2012), which was awarded the Shapiro Best Book Award and the Israeli Political Science Association Best Book Award.
Fany Yuval is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Public Policy and Administration at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Her research focuses on municipal systems, management strategies and policy instruments, organizational behaviour and public opinion in municipalities, with a particular interest in gender and minorities. Supported by the Ministry of Science in Israel, she recently led a project researching the role played by municipalities in reducing gender inequality.